Design-Time Rules Mechanism for Scalable Portal Modeling

The patent implements a universal visual design tool that can adapt to multiple business domains through a configurable rule engine. Instead of creating separate customized tools for each domain, the system provides a single platform that can be configured with different design rules, constraints, and meta-models to serve various domains such as enterprise portals, data models, and application designs, thereby achieving domain-specific capability without separate development efforts

The system employs dynamic rule configuration that allows design rules, constraints, and meta-models to be modified at runtime without requiring tool reconfiguration or recompilation. This dynamic adaptability enables the visual design tool to respond to different domain requirements on-demand, switching between domain-specific behaviors through configurable rules rather than through static customized versions

The patent extracts domain-specific logic from the core visual design tool by implementing a separate, configurable rule engine and meta-model layer. This separation allows the core tool to remain simple and universal, while domain-specific constraints and rules are extracted into independent configurations that can be added or removed without affecting the base system, thereby avoiding complexity proliferation

The system segments domain-specific design logic into separate, modular rule configurations and meta-models that can be independently managed. Each domain operates with its own set of configurable rules and constraints that are segmented from the core tool, allowing complex domain requirements to be broken down into manageable, reusable rule sets that don't increase overall system complexity

The patent implements selective rule evaluation that only activates and evaluates relevant design rules based on the current design context and user actions. Instead of evaluating all OCL constraints continuously, the system evaluates only the subset of rules applicable to the current operation, reducing computational overhead while maintaining validation reliability for the specific context being edited

The system dynamically adjusts rule evaluation based on design-time versus run-time contexts. At design-time, full validation is applied to ensure model correctness, while at run-time during interactive editing, the system uses optimized, context-aware rule evaluation that provides real-time feedback without the full computational burden of complete OCL constraint checking, thus achieving both reliability and responsiveness

The patent applies different evaluation strategies to different parts of the model based on local context. Instead of uniformly evaluating all OCL constraints across the entire model during every interactive operation, the system identifies and evaluates only the local subset of constraints relevant to the specific design element being modified, thereby maintaining constraint satisfaction while reducing overall computational overhead

The system performs partial evaluation of constraints by only checking the necessary subset of OCL definitions required for the current interactive operation. This partial action approach ensures that constraint satisfaction is maintained for the relevant portion of the model without incurring the computational cost of evaluating the entire constraint set, thus balancing reliability with reduced computational overhead